For hundreds of years, parents have used baby carriages and strollers as a primary means of transporting young children. While many improvements have been made, they still today remain cumbersome and limited in their practicality when transporting children old enough to walk. Additionally, due to the method of pushing for propulsion, this method may also require physical effort and may create discomfort for the parent or guardian.
Young children who are old enough to walk are usually difficult to confine in small carriages or strollers as they get restless and bored. Additionally, they are removed from direct involvement with their parent or guardian pushing the carriage or stroller. Children old enough to walk are very energetic and typically want constant interaction. By confining them to carriages and strollers, parents and guardians push or pull the carriage or stroller at a distance, forcing the child to inactively ride without easy adult interaction.
When children grow out of carriages it becomes difficult for them to keep up with adults on long walks or trips to events that require a lot of walking Young walking children are usually not accustomed to walking long distances, but they also refuse be squeezed into strollers that they no longer enjoy. Wagons can be strenuous to drag around and tricycles with push bars can be equally uncomfortable for adults. These items also require the kids to be ahead or behind the adults and are bulky. This leaves parents or guardians to carry their children, which can be very strenuous for the adult and often cannot be done for long enough to efficiently transport the child.
When a child starts to walk, strollers typically become a preferable choice over carriages. By the time a child is about two years old they are eager to walk on their own; around the age of three years or so, parents and guardians generally have no viable options for mobilizing their children efficiently. The most accessible and common choices are tricycles and wagons that tend to be bulky/heavy, strapping them in strollers that can be equally cumbersome and annoying to most older children, or simply having them walk. This leaves a void and need for a lightweight, collapsible, small, and easy to carry transportation device that enables children to be propelled safely by their parent or guardian while riding in a more active manner.
Many parents or guardians use scooters as a means of mobilizing their children. However, these devices are self-propelled by the child leaving the parent or guardian with no control over their movement. Stooping to control scooters can be strenuous, and can be unsafe as they can be difficult to keep from gliding away. Scooters can be dangerous in many environments, particularly for younger children first learning to ride. With older children, scooters can become hazardous for bystanders as there is no control over speed and direction by parents or guardians and children often cannot fully and safely control scooters in situations where pedestrian or vehicular traffic creates hazards.
There is a need for a Child's Active Transportation Device that enables the children to remain alongside, as opposed to in front of or behind, the parent or guardian in a standing, squatting or sitting position. This way, they can easily interact while the child rides. The present invention can be a cost effective and viable solution that enables efficient active transportation while maintaining safe control by the parent or guardian. Current means of transporting children tend to keep the child sedentary and therefore inactive, or tend to lack adequate safety and braking features to prevent the device from moving without a parent or guardian making it do so. In the standing position of the present invention children are additionally elevated by the height of such a device and therefore able to hear and be heard by the parent or guardian, thereby improving interaction and the ability to remain actively involved while riding.
An active transportation device of this sort would greatly improve the interaction and activity of children while on any long walk with their parent or guardian. It would also offer parents or guardians an ergonomic solution for comfort and efficiency problems that typically exist with carriages, strollers, wagons, tricycles or children's cars with push bars, or other children's transportation devices currently available. This is a particularly important while transporting children through large event spaces like street fairs, parks, outdoor music events, amusement parks, museums, and theme parks. Many of these public and privately owned venues restrict use of scooters, tricycles, and other similar active devices due to the potential hazards of colliding with other individuals. Carriages and strollers typically restrict children's ability to participate in the event as they are strapped to the device in a sitting or lying down position. Therefore there is a great need for a transportation device that allows for a child to stand alongside making them feel like they are walking with their parent or guardian and not just being transported.
Carriages, strollers, wagons, tricycles or children's cars with push bars, or other children's transportation devices currently available are also typically bulky and hard to transport on subways, buses, taxi cabs, cars, airplanes, and other forms of mass transportation. The present invention can be smaller and easier to fold than these traditional devices, making it easy to carry on subways, buses, taxi cabs, cars, airplanes, and other forms of mass transportation.